The Dream of the Red King

Through the Looking Glass:

The ALT has always seemed like a mirror-image, a duality to the current reality, a “consciousness reality”, a “Through The Looking Glass” reality.

Lewis Carroll is referenced countless times in Lost (white rabbits, the Looking Glass station, etc. – check Lostpedia for more) – so I believe the concept of “Through the Looking Glass” is key to the final moments in Lost.

Mirrors have played a role of late: the Lighthouse is a good example. And more recently, the Music Box.

When Claire opens the Music Box, we hear the song that has represented both Aaron and The Smoke Monster at various times. We see Claire’s reflection in a mirror. If we think about “Through the Looking Glass”, are we seeing:

- the reflection of Claire, who is the mother of Aaron, but hearing the music representing the Smoke Monster – in the ALT, is Aaron the vessel that the Smoke Monster will enter the ALT through, thereby causing space/time devastation? Aaron, born on the island, perhaps marked by the Divine Light, a soul that the Smoke Monster can use once the ‘game is won’.

The Dream of the Red King:

A final thought relevant to “Through the Looking Glass”

(Wikipedia): The Red King is a character who appears in Lewis Carroll's fantasy story Through the Looking-Glass….when Alice first meets him he is fast asleep ("fit to snore his head off", as Tweedledum says). During this time, Tweedledum and Tweedledee state that if she (Alice) is part of the Red King's dream, as they suspect, then she will "go out—bang!—like a candle" when he wakes….

The match ends by Alice's checkmating of the king, an action coincident with the taking of the Red Queen.

Alice immediately wakes up, no longer in the realm of Through the Looking Glass. Alice acknowledges that the Red King had, after all, been asleep throughout the whole game, and is left wondering whether the whole experience was her dream, or his.

So – not to say it’s all a dream – but if we use this as a clue, the reality ‘disappears’ when the game is up….

Meaning that when the revelation occurs, one of the realities ‘ceases to be’ for the observer, leaving only one.